This is one of those moments in history that future humans look back on and wonder how people were "so much more ignorant, stupid, gullible, corrupt, etc. than

This is one of those moments in history that future humans look back on and wonder how people were "so much more ignorant, stupid, gullible, corrupt, etc. than we are today". Praising yourself for things that you did not actually do is analogous to how some ancient kings praised themselves for winning a battle that historians later realized they did not actually win. Like how did those kings really expect their people to just believe that? Because the king's fact checkers verified it, of course. The many self-generated mythologies of the Kim dynasty of North Korea is a great example of this phenomenon.